We’re not doing this for money! We’re doing it for a filthy truck-load of money!
WARNING: This review series will spoil the entire movie. You’ve been warned.
When I was a young boy, my aunt and uncle brought over a little movie called Star Wars: A New Hope that I could watch on my parents’ VCR. It was before the Special Editions came out, but needless to say, that movie captured a special place in my mind. It was a unique experience for me (and you) that merged the power of science fiction with a mixture of simple morals and spectacular visual effects. After that, I was able to experience Empire and Jedi in the theaters for the first time in their remastered forms, which deepened the stories of characters I grew to love and brought things around to a satisfying conclusion.
Then came the prequels that will never be spoken of again…
With The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams and the team at Lucasfilm had a big task to accomplish: make people forget about the prequels while advancing the story in a meaningful way. Did it make me forget about the troubles of the saga? Yes. Did it advance the story? Yes. Was it as original and profound as the original trilogy? No.
But let’s not just rest there. We need to absorb this movie like a “strong and independent person” absorbs cake…
Bo-hohoho! A-hahahaha!
Let’s dig in, shall we?
I wonder what these stormtroopers are doi-. OH GOD!
As I said, the main objectives of this movie are to advance the story and make people forget about the bad things in the saga. The run-up to this movie made every attempt to do just that, which plays out in J.J.’s favor. Unlike the prequels, there was no rift between the critics and the movie-going public over the quality of this movie, so I went into it with a lot of optimism. Star Wars was back! Disney is ready to make a good movie AND milk that cash cow like the dirty, sexy capitalists that they are! When you go into the theater, you can feel the Force surge in you once again as the opening crawl and familiar music soars.
Luke Skywalker is missing. The First Order is in search of a map that will allow them to kill him. The Republic has organized a proxy army to fight back against these Space Nazis. The stage is set for a new war as we jump out of space…
…and into the darkest opening scene that I’ve ever seen in a Star Wars flick.
Right from the start, we get to see how evil the First Order is through the massacre of a village. We are first introduced to Poe Dameron, a hotshot Resistance pilot, and his droid friend, BB-8.
Hey! I actually like these two and everything is easy to explain for once! And then, it all goes straight to hell.
The First Order comes in and attacks in search of the map. It is here that we can see their mentality in action that could easily explain the thirty-year gap between the movies. They are covering up their operations with war crimes and growing in strength by gathering resources and information. It’s a probe and a poke that is being led by our main villain, Kylo Ren.
Dark Side OP. Plez Nerf.
We can clearly tell that this mystery bad guy is full of some next level power, especially since he pulls off feats like stopping a blaster bolt in mid-air.
If this is our new bad guy, then what the hell is the Resistance gonna do?! He seems young and more powerful than anything we’ve seen before… and evil enough to straight up murder the entire village in cold blood. Although Poe is captured, our first badass buys enough time for his cute little toy, er, I mean droid to escape with the map.
Hey! I’m actually emotionally involved! Who would have thought it?
To make things even more interesting, there is actually a Stormtrooper out there that is having none of this. The plot threads are being set up. Let’s see how far we can go before J.J. either masterfully completes them or lets them blow up in his face.
To Be Continued in Part 2.
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